38 DIGS.NET
| 4.8.2022
P R O F I L E | C R A I G S T E E LY
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opportunity to build a completely glass walled house, protected
from the direct rays of the sun, yet filled with dappled sunlight,"
Steely explains. Arriving at the top of the slope, looking over the
top of the oak grove, "You enter the house onto a sod roof that
feels like an open grassy meadow in the treetops. You climb
down a stair into the living floor which is nestled in the oak
canopy. Gray squirrels run along the branches and wild turkeys
roost in the treetops, just 10 feet away from the kitchen table."
Mule deer also roam the land as if it were never touched. "The
expanse of glass," he notes, "feels permeable and disappears
only to leave nature as it always has been in the grove."
The glass is a sieve for streams of sunlight that flood the space,
lending warmth to the austerity of the open plan interior, which
lacks visible systems and superfluous fittings that would other-
wise cloud the dominate views of the landscape—sacrilege
in this house. Steely's program called for cantilevering the
main living area into the tree canopy while, in a gesture of both
utility and fluidity, concealing bedrooms, bathrooms, service,
and storage behind a long wall of cabinetry. The home's living
room, office, and kitchen, meanwhile, are distinct spaces, but
delineated spatially by having been sunk into the concrete
floor, and further defined by material. "In the sunken office, all
surfaces—flooring, desk, cabinetry—are milled from a single
slab of Chinese pistachio," according to the program notes.
"The sunken living room is filled with 250-square-foot of B&B
Italia's Tufty-Time sofa components. In the kitchen/dining room,
a 22-foot-long counter of white composite quartz continues
the kitchen work surface into the dining table." The sense of one
continuous movement throughout the space is the result of several
smart decisions, such as flush mounted LED strips in the ceiling
that indicate living zones. Outside, when looking up through the
trees, one can see these geometric lines of light that Steely says
are "reminiscent of a Dan Flavin sculpture."
Embodying Steely's brand of honest, undiluted architecture, Pam
and Paul's House is eminently functional and, as a form, filled with
light and flow and feeling—something the architect, who splits his
time between architecture studios in California and Hawaii, innately
understands. The work is at once thoughtful and adventurous; a
project where one not only sees a vision of the future, but the hand
of one of its most prolific and insistent builders.craigsteely.com
